Behind the Tucson Rodeo

  The grounds are empty. Empty stadium seats, open parking lots and steer pens with nothing around but silence in the air, except for one man overlooking the rodeo racetrack. This man is José Calderon. It’s his second year presiding over the Tucson Rodeo. Saturday marks its 93rd year. Calderon is the chairman of the…

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Tucson couple carry out annual saguaro census

For desert dwellers, saguaros are a part of daily life. Scattered in front yards, cropping up along the side of the road, sprinkled on mountainsides, the hulking cactuses are nearly omnipresent in the Arizona desert. We often see them without realizing what goes into the survival of these huge plants that only grow in the…

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Chinese en Arizona

Traducido por Javier Aispuro. Viajar en tren en Yuma con una caja con huesos en sus manos, G.W. Chapman hizo lo que muchos creyeron sacrílego. Vació una caja enorme llena de huesos de inmigrantes chinos en el río Colorado. Era un día cálido en 1882 y “Old Chap”, el mensajero expreso y empleado de correos…

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ACTuando con miedo al Islam

Traducido por Javier Aispuro. Una vez al mes, una sala de la biblioteca de Tucson se llena de personas que tienen mucho, mucho, mucho miedo. De sus vecinos. Su miedo colectivo no tiene un rostro específico, pero tiene una fe específica. El Islam, y los elementos radicales supuestamente “infiltrados” en América constituyen una amenaza existencial…

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ACTing in fear of Islam

Once a month, a Tucson library room fills with people who are very, very, very afraid. Of their neighbors. Their collective fear doesn’t have a specific face, but has a specific faith. Islam, and the radical elements allegedly “infiltrating” America, constitute an existential threat to the (mostly elderly) men and women who meet in this…

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